1 Ducat - Ferdinand I

Ferdinand Gonzaga ruled Mantua from 1612 having previously pursued a clerical career in Rome — he held a cardinalate before renouncing his orders upon the death of his brother Francesco IV. The transition from cardinal to ruling duke required papal dispensation and reshaped the Gonzaga succession entirely. His reign ended with the duchy plunged into the War of the Mantuan Succession, a conflict that would within a few years of his 1626 death see Mantua sacked by Habsburg and Imperial forces in one of the most destructive episodes in the city's history.